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Bishop Merwyn's Charge to Diocesan Synod
Sep 29, 2009
Theme: God’s Mission – Called to be Good Stewards
Welcome:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
An extremely warm welcome to our Synod Representatives, both clergy and laity, invited Representatives from our Diocesan Organizations and Ministries, our special ecumenical guests, and those from the Academia, Government and Civil Society. It is good to have with us Bishop Raphael of Saldanha Bay and Bishop Garth of Table Bay and their spouses. Both fresh from their own recent Synods. Also our very dear friends Bishop Charles and his wife, Berenice and Bishop David Russell, former Bishop of Grahamstown and his wife, Dorothea. We have received many greetings and these we will be placed in the ACTS and Resolutions booklet after Synod.
Second Synod
This is our second Synod since our inauguration as a Diocese on Advent Sunday 2005. It’s also my second since my Instalment as your Bishop on Freedom Day in April 2006. Our theme then was God’s Mission – Our Mission. This Synod’s theme is God’s Mission – Called to be Good Stewards.
God has blessed us
Much has happened in these past three years and God has blessed us abundantly – with dedicated and committed people both lay and ordained, with growth in congregations and new plants, with a steady stream of ordinands, with fairly stable and impressive financial resources and effective new ministries and outreach into the community. The spiritual life of the Diocese is being deepened with Retreats and Quiet Days, our Liturgical and Sacramental ministrations, study of the Scriptures and the preaching of the Word. Young people are being prepared in numbers for Communion and Confirmation and creative worship and music is being offered in many of our parishes to keep them close to God and to us – the family of God.
But a time to Review
Yes God is blessing us, but this Synod gives us the opportunity to pause and assess our progress over the past three years – to look at our Diocesan Vision and Mission Statement again, and note where we still fall short of what God requires of us as His people, to fulfil God’s Mission and that of the Church.
So our Theme – Called to be Good Stewards – will help us to be inspired anew, to catch a second breath and with new vision and energy to face in the direction to which God is calling us. The Theme can be widely interpreted because as Christians, we believe that all that we have and are, are God’s gifts to us out of a heart of love and that we are accountable to God for how we choose to use them. How we use our time, our personal gifts and abilities, our financial resources and God’s Creation, our care for the natural world and our environment, and our responsibilities to our neighbour are crucial for the transformation and salvation of humankind which is the Mission of God and therefore that of the Church.
A definition of God’s Mission – an Anglican Statement
• To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
• To teach, baptize and nurture new believers.
• To respond to human need by loving service
• To seek to transform unjust structures of society and,
• To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.
In 2007 – an Anglican Conference in Boksburg – which many of us attended including the Archbishop of Canterbury – embraced these five marks of Mission in the eight Millennium Development Goals and added two others. Again, I am repeating them because they are worth repeat over and over again.
• Eradication of poverty,
• Universal Primary Education – school funding,
• Gender Equality – reducing domestic violence,
• Reducing the death of children,
• Maternal health,
• Combat HIV/AIDS,
• Environmental sustainability,
• Global partners,
• Reducing conflict – refugees,
• Preserving young life.
“The Mission of the Church is always authentic when it’s focused on these matters”- Archbishop Rowan Williams.
Our own Mission and Vision Statement for the Diocese seeks to encapsulate much of what I have said.
The Christian Steward
So what does God require of us as those who are called to renew the face of the earth: Allow me to sermonize a bit. It has been said that most of us are capitalists at heart, whatever our politics. There is some truth in this if it implies that we all need to have something which is our own to help us to express and fulfil ourselves. But what we mean by what is ours, varies considerably.
Possessions for some includes ‘my job, my money, my house, my human rights, or my vote’. Others apply ownership in some degree of people too – my wife, my children or my friends. And most of us think of life itself as the ultimate possession, ‘my life’ to do what I will with. I suppose you could regard all these as human nature. But Jesus looked at ownership from a completely different angle. In the life of the Kingdom, what mattered most was not possessions but stewardship. In other words, whatever we had was on loan from God. God has entrusted it to us to enable us to fulfil our vocation as His children. And we would be accountable to God for our use of it. Even grace and forgiveness are included.
One of our Lord’s most powerful parables involved a steward who was forgiven an enormous debt by his master, but immediately went out and demanded payment of a tiny amount by a fellow-servant. Even life was on loan. The man who wanted to keep it to serve only self-interest, would lose what he tried to preserve. He could be called to account for it at any time, when he least expected to have to do so. But God does not expect us to do the impossible by our own efforts. Paul witnesses that God’s grace is sufficient for us to make the best use of whatever God entrusted to us. God expects us to take risks confident of his support and fairness. And we are to share what we have, not keep it to ourselves. Paul quoted in his letters to the Ephesians, a saying of Jesus, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ Stewardship means sharing and accountability.
Stewardship Today?
Nowadays in our parishes Stewardship is a term used mainly about the giving of money. We have a programme doing the rounds of the Diocese concentrating on Stewardship and Evangelism. We have coupled two Gospel imperatives not to reduce this high principle of Stewardship to a materialistic level.
But an acid test of our Christian commitment very often lies in what we do with our money. We need to ask, how does our expenditure reflect our priorities. We all have our own scale of these influenced by our family circumstances and the age in which we live in, status, class, politics. But we need to ask, how does my religion influence my decision in this matter. At the deepest level, Jesus condemned the obsession with money as a form of idolatry. Jesus urged his disciples to be detached, to hang loose, from the preoccupation of the world with possession and material security. The early Church really took this seriously.
Duty and Need
Down the ages, Christian people have agreed that giving was a practical expression of commitment. The rich were under more pressure to give to the poor of the day and in the future. Rich nations today give to developing countries, sadly always with strings attached. Following Jewish practice, tithing has been accepted to provide for the maintenance of the Church’s work and ministry. Emergency appeals always produce vast sums of money.
But in these days we have come to realize that giving must be planned, prayed about and covenanted, based not on the need, like repairs to the Church roof, or the payment of Parish or Diocesan assessment, but in the Christian’s own inner need to give. That need, needs to be awakened by the sense of gratitude and thanksgiving, for all that we have received from God, from others and from our predecessors in our parishes. Giving should be the natural and spontaneous expression of thanksgiving, and an expression of total commitment.
Remember how Jesus drew attention to this in the Temple. He saw ostentatious donors giving out of the petty cash of their riches. He pointed out that the poor widow was making her offering out of all the living that she had. Because true giving is always sacrificial. You know the story told at missionary meetings of a hen and pig looking at a notice advertising a missionary society bacon and egg breakfast. The hen said: ‘Isn’t it nice to think that our contributions are supporting such a worthy cause? The pig replied: ‘yes, but in your case it’s a donation. For my family, it means a sacrifice!’
The True meaning of Stewardship
Stewardship is about money yes – and as a Diocese we need to raise vast sums for our future development in new areas and to meet present needs and keep stipendiary priests in each parish – but it is only a part of a more comprehensive principle of the Stewardship of life as a whole. It’s not an academic theory. It is woven into every aspect of living in God’s world and essential for a fulsome execution of the Mission of God by the Church. We must urgently recognize this as we role out specific ministries in the Diocese involving Gender Issues, Young People, HIV/AIDS and other social problems like Unemployment, Justice Issues, Drugs and Gangsterism and care for our Environment. All of the above is an intrinsic part of God’s call to be good and faithful Stewards.
To broaden the base – Bishop Geoff will remind us again during this Synod about biodiversity, the land, water, climate change, greed and our Stewardship of Creation. Please use the material in your parish contained in the resource document called the Season of Creation.
The Stewardship of life is involved in the controversies over abortion and euthanasia, of child trafficking and homosexuality.
It comes into the argument about the enormously growing gulf between the haves and the have nots, the super rich and the poor, the cause of the financial melt down in the world and growth of religion and political fundamentalism. The progress and unity of any nation depends on the acceptance of the principle that no group and no class and no race, has the right to live to itself. Cain’s question: “am I my brother’s keeper?" is a crucial question of the book of Genesis and is still so for us in the 21st Century and in our life as a Diocese. My wish and prayer is that in our Diocese we are one another’s keeper. We will not allow greed and self interest to impede the Mission of God.
Accountability
Cain is answerable to God. A world or a nation that does not believe in God has no sense of accountability to him. This is its lost dimension. If it is self-absorbed with its own problems or progress, it isn’t even accountable to the future and posterity. There are numerous examples in history. Our task as Christians is to witness where God has placed us, that all nations and races and individuals are accountable to God who creates and cares. We can’t do that if we are not convicted ourselves that we too are answerable to God. That is not a restriction of our freedom but a liberation – an acceptance of a grave responsibility. There is a lovely Collect which says “in whose service is perfect freedom”.
This is the way to right relationships and peace which St Paul describes as ‘The glorious liberty of the children of God’ In that freedom God wants all of us to enjoy and to find happiness in the stewardship of time, and talents, of work and relationships – and even of the stewardship of suffering.
Openness and ready to be challenged
I do not know too many people who actually enjoy Synods, I have known a few. Those of you who have been elected by your parishes probably come with mixed feelings, you may even feel like Simon of Cyrene, forced to do something you would rather not do – the Bishop has even included a public holiday – Heritage Day! The clergy too come with mixed feelings – Friday is normally my day off – I hope the Bishop finishes on Friday and not on Saturday. Well, please be expectant for God the Holy Spirit to touch your hearts - be open to learn, to have opinions changed - be prepared to take risks- all for the sake of the Kingdom. Synods are called for God’s people to discern the way ahead. Let’s be challenged, let’s trust, let’s recommit.
Reporting back and spreading the news
As we leave on Saturday or Friday, remember, the outcome of a successful Synod is a successful reporting back strategy to our constituency - the congregations in our parish. We need to do that so that all have a ‘buy in’ and are aware of the plans for the future. I hope that the clergy and representatives of each parish will make opportunities for this to happen. Report in your pew leaflets and parish magazines. See that ‘The Anchor’ is handed out to all parishioners. Good Communications is essential for good community action, we need lots of money well spent, lots of accountability and energy and hard work and lots of faith in God’s Grace to use us as Good Stewards of His Kingdom.
Five Years Young
Next year we will have been a Diocese for five years. I hope we will be able to celebrate that in style. We have already commissioned Peter Krummick to produce a musical to commemorate the expulsion of two CR Fathers from Stellenbosch during the bad Apartheid days. We must have a huge party somewhere and a huge Eucharistic celebration. We should also try to complete all present building projects. Let’s pray about it and action it!
Paul to Timothy
I end with these wonderful words:
"As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.
"Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge; by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith. Grace be with you.” Amen.
Merwyn E Castle
Bishop of False Bay
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